Campus administrators from rural public school districts are continuously looking for creative innovative ways to respond to the educational challenges placed upon them by federal and state-legislated accountability requirements. Advances in interactive videoconferencing (ITVC) technologies provide a way to address these challenges. However, these advancements sometimes lack needed resources to make a network of this magnitude work. The Mid-Rio Collaborative was established to share educational resources and knowledge between Texas A&M International University in Laredo, Texas, and surrounding rural public school districts in South Texas. The established collaborative provided the backdrop for the study while meeting the educational needs of this region. The purpose of this study was to examine the use of interactive videoconferencing as a viable alternative for the delivery of high school Algebra. A mixed methods case study of four campuses explored the perceptions of administrators teachers, and students in the use of interactive videoconferencing. The sampled population included 4 administrators, 4 teachers, 35 students (12 experimental and 23 control) from selected rural districts. Qualitative and quantitative research methodologies were utilized in identifying perceptions of participating principals, teachers, and students. Major findings of this study included (a) campus administrators’ values and beliefs influence teacher use of interactive videoconferencing; (b) a difference exists in experienced and novice teacher perceptions regarding the impact of ITVC, (c) perceptions are dependent upon the Teacher Partner role in the teaching and learning process; (d) increased interaction between students, teacher, content, other learners, and technology exists with instruction delivered through ITVC; (e) perceptions of cognitive and classroom conditions differed between students receiving instruction via face-to-face and interactive videoconferencing; finally, (f) students receiving instruction through ITVC did not demonstrate academic gains in state-mandated tests (TAKS). Study results support the current body of research that contends there is no significant difference between instruction delivered face-to-face and instruction being delivered via interactive videoconferencing.

Abstract Due to the development of venture practices worldwide, many scholars have been studying ways of creating successful ventures; most of which are related to web-based individual ventures, organizational ventures or co-operative ventures. However, during an organizational venture, the interactive relationship among the partners might affect the venturing process. Although this type of research is limited, it still has its importance, and thus arouses a motivation for this research. This research is based on a case study relating to an organization that is undergoing an internal venture. Through interviews and analysis with the necessary information, this research concludes the following results: 1. According to the organization, the goal of internal venturing is to establish the possibility of different industry with the aid of government funding. After the failure of the bidding, the partners have decided to carry out the blueprint that was drawn for the bidding, and search for the possibility of other support. 2. The time for the venturing process is very tight. During the first 6 months of the plan, meetings were held regularly; after that there was a 1-month preparation and the organization was established. So, the partners have to cooperate in a short time, and conflicts and emotions are resulted. Competitions are common and conflicts cause the loss of professional skills. 3. After six months of operation, because of different opinions and insistence within the organization, as well as the eager to create revenue in a short period, the strategies of the organization have begun to fall away from the original plan. The amount of revenues does not meet the expectation and conflicts among the staff are increasing. Managers have begun to have doubts about the plan, and the venture partners are beginning to resign and the organization is beginning to collapse. Keywords: Internal Venture, Venture Partners, Interactive Relationship.

none

Abstract Since the policy of National Information Infrastructure(NII) was brought up by U.S in 1993, medium, internet, telecommunication begins to converge. Industries around the world start to construct new services. The result all comes from the technology progress of broadband network. Cable companies only offer program services before, today they can play an important role in NII blueprint by their competence of last mile and large customer base. Cable companies can offer a lot of valued added service, especially as ITV service. From 90 years the discussion about how ITV will change the human life has never stopped. People living in Europe and U.S have had a chance watch ITV, but ITV in Taiwan seems still can¡¦t be possible. This research explore the straits by using Porter¡¦s competitive advantage of nations model and combines the first mover advantage theory by Wernerfelt, Birger and Karnani, Aneel. Lastly the research constructs a six frames analysis model. Major result of this research tells us each frame has many limiting factors to obstruct the development of cable ITV. And the limiting factors under the government, corporate, supported industry fames are more critical. The intervention by government is the most important limiting factor. Lack of demand, lack of technology, incorrect strategy and incorrect management are not the reason that ITV didn¡¦t happen in Taiwan. The research makes the conclusion that the straits in Taiwan are coming from the vicious circle caused by the government intervention and the bad situation in the cable industry. The research considers if we want the ITV carry out in Taiwan, We must stop the vicious circle. The government policy is the key point to solve the problem. So finally the research provides the four steps policy trying to change the situation of cable industry.

Writing a good story requires immense patience, creativity and work from the author, and the practice of writing a story requires a good grasp of the readers' psychology to create suspense and thrills and to merge the readers' world with that of the story. In the digital writing space, authors can still adhere to these rules of thumb while being aware of the disappearance of certain constraints due to the added possibility of narrating in a nonlinear fashion. There are many overlapping approaches to interactive storytelling or authoring, but each of the approaches has its own strengths and weaknesses. The motivation for this research arises from the perceived need for a new hybrid approach that coalesces and extends existing approaches. Since each of the approaches empowers certain aspects of the storytelling and narration process, the result forces a new research direction which eliminates certain weaknesses exhibited by a single approach, due to the synergistic nature of the various approaches. We have developed: 1) a Hybrid Evolutionary-Fuzzy Time-based Interactive (HEFTI) storytellling engine that generates dynamic stories from a set of authored story constructs given by human authors; 2) a set of authoring tools that allow authors to generate the needed story constructs; and, 3) a storytelling environment for them to orchestrate a digital stage play with computer agents and scripts. We have conducted a usability study and system evaluation to evaluate the performance of the engine. Our experiments and usability study have shown that the authoring environment abstracted the complexity of authoring an interactive, dynamic story from the authors with the use of windows-based interfaces to help them visualize various aspects of a story. This reduces the amount of learning and knowledge required to start having the pleasure of authoring dynamic stories. The studies also revealed certain features and tools that may be reflected by authoring tools in the future to automate various aspects of the authoring process so that the authors may spend more time thinking rather than writing (or programming) their stories.

Interactive art is rapidly becoming a part of cosmopolitan society through public displays, video games, and art exhibits. It is a means of exploring the connections between our physical bodies and the virtual world. However, a sense of disconnection often exists between the users and technology because users are driving actions within an environment from which they are physically separated. This research involves the creation of a custom interactive, immersive, and real-time video-based mark-making installation as public art. Using a variety of input devices including video cameras, sensors, and special lighting, a painterly mark-making experience is contemporized, enabling the participant to immerse himself in a world he helps create. This work illustrates the potential of making the user-technology disconnection more seamless between the physical and virtual worlds. Using unobtrusive interfaces, the user?s physical interactions can be encouraged. The development of this installation progressed through improvements based on user feedback from iterative public displays of the work. This process is to serve as a guideline for other artists working in interactive media who are also exploring perceived intimacy in user interactions.

<p><em> “Just as the consumer is becoming more intelligent, the company in parallel should become more intelligent about the customer”</em> (Raisch, 2000, p.4)<em>.</em></p><p>Internet has become a huge marketplace and to stay competitive in this growing marketplace, companies must improve the way they interact with their customers (Rayport & Jaworski, 2005). As the amount of information online is rapidly growing, customers are becoming more intelligent. Intelligence that in turn makes them more powerful as they with high knowledge becomes high involvement purchasers, which is the opposite to what companies desire. Moreover customers are no longer satisfied with rewards like “bonus-points” or “take three pay for two” campaigns (Kalkota & Robinson 1999). Today’s customers want to be treated individual, they want to feel special, want to feel that the company really take care for them (Newell 2000).</p><p>The aim with this thesis is to explain how Interactive Agents (IA) as a concept can help companies to attract and retain customers. To do so, we first need to describe what that concept consists of.</p><p>IA:s can be described as “robots” chatting with the user/customer. They often take graphical form and works with a large knowledgebase that help them deliver the answer a user asks for. The agent is designed to serve customers 24/7 and can, to the opposite of a human, handle more than one case at time. The significant difference between a search-engine and an IA is the technology that allows users to use natural sentences to communicate with the agent instead of only using keywords. </p><p>Our findings, that take ground in a literature study followed by an interview with one of the big developers of AI in Sweden, indicates that IA:s could provide companies with an additional value over money savings, which is the main reason according to developers to invest in IA:s. As we can see, two different types of benefits, technical and commercial, can be generated by implementing an IA in an organization. Technical benefits are generated directly from the technology, i.e. make the access to information less complicated and increased knowledge about customers. Commercial benefits are generated as a result of applying this technology and if experienced to a satisfactory level by its target-group, it can generate some commercial benefits, such as goodwill and brand mediation.</p><p>We would like to conclude our findings to say that IA will be able to generate some value for the system-user and the end-user. However, we believe that to create a value of significance, there are still requirements (see conclusions) that need to be carried out, where the most important part would be interaction with other systems.</p><p> </p>

Reproduction de : Thèse de doctorat : Sciences de l'information et de la communication : Metz : 2004. / Titre provenant de l'écran-titre. Notes bibliographiques.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 189-195). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.L.A.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Title from PDF of title page. Document formatted into pages; contains pages. Includes bibliographical references.